About

Intro

True Crime Legends is a cinematic, mafia themed board game for 3-4 players. It takes around 60-90 minutes to play.

Lead rival syndicates competing to control the lucrative and dangerous markets of the underworld. Players take turns buying valuable assets and items, hiring legendary true life characters, smuggling contraband, dealing with events and taking actions against each other to build up their syndicate’s fortunes and prestige. The first player to make a cool million dollars wins the game.

"The Phase Tracker is an excellent game resource tool to keep all players organized and on task. I honestly wish more games did trackers like this because it helps the game to move forward. Plus the Day and Night is also a slick mechanic." (Brian, Boardgamequest)

Starting with $200,000 you must build up your syndicate by purchasing assets and items, hiring characters and levelling up your boss. The first player to make a million dollars with an active boss wins the game. Every turn you’ll have an opportunity to purchase from an ever changing market.

Market

"This game has many positives and one of the biggest is the Market system. I love the fact the True Crime Legends give players the chance to choose their own cards." (Brian, boardgamequest)

Your assets will be the source of your legitimate income so make sure you keep them protected by security characters. Some assets produce higher income, some add a higher prestige value to your syndicate and some allow you to smuggle more contraband.

Assets

Your team of characters will be doing a lot of your dirty work so choose wisely who you recruit. You will assign roles to your team members; underboss, hitman, bomber, enforcer and accountant.

Syndicate

During the abilities phase you will be sending out your characters to do a variety of tasks such as making or stealing money for you, assaulting other characters, kidnapping them, murdering them, persuading them to join your ranks or even bombing assets.

Actions

But what could make you think twice about ordering one of your characters to carry out an assault or a murder? Well, when your characters roll actions and they miss, there is an instant shot at retaliation.

Characters

"The last detail of True Crime Legends that was a huge plus for me was the actual Character Cards. These all include actual famous criminals from the last 100 years."
(Brian, Boardgamequest)

Some characters and assets will allow you to move a higher level of contraband during the smuggle phase. The more you smuggle the higher the rewards but the higher the risks. The contraband market will fluctuate so if your gamble backfires you could see your boss behind bars and your syndicate in debt.

Contraband Card

You will also encounter vices during the game. Your boss will have to pay the owner of certain assets a debt every round. Is your boss addicted to strippers? Better be prepared to pay the debt to the strip club owner every turn then. Alternatively you could send one of your characters to blow it up!

Items will give your characters and your syndicate bonuses. Always keep a nice bribe handy in case you have to pay off a judge. If you have a particularly prized asset such as the club, better that you equip the character protecting it with a bullet proof vest.

The events add variance to each game and excellent replay value. In these events you may be asked if you want to collaborate with other players on a bank job, you may be called to a commission meeting to vote for a hitman to be sent to kill a rival boss or you may simply have an opportunity to send some of your better fighting characters to a bare knuckle boxing event.

Making an enemy of every other player could leave you in a tight situation. Diplomacy is a very important factor in the game and makes you think long and hard about who you attack. Tensions could escalate from a simple assault incident or robbery all the way up to bosses attempting to kill each other.

At the end of the day keep your mind on the money and your eyes on the prize for the first player to make that cool million dollars will be declared the True Crime Legend.

Every copy of True Crime Legends will include a graphically illustrated rulebook in English. We will also be making translated versions that will be available to download in different languages.

Board Game Quest Preview

Did you think you could have run crime syndicates better than crime bosses like Michael Corleone or Tony Soprano? I think I could... Read the full preview

Shipping anywhere in the world is included in all pledges. We will be using fulfilment centres in the EU and US so no extra customs costs should be charged there.

True Crime Legends will be delivered before the end of March 2017. For those who wish to give the game as a Christmas gift we will provide you with a printable Certificate of Ownership and Christmas Card that you will receive on the 22nd December if we reach our funding goal. Merry Christmas from Silk Hat Games!

'Print n' Play PDF and PC Tabletop Simulator download links will be emailed to you before Christmas Day. You will need Tabletop Simulator Plug-In in order to play the PC version.

True Crime Legends will be our first release under the company name of Silk Hat Games. I have been working on True Crime Legends for the best part of five years. It has been my labour of love. It all started as a ‘what if’ moment with my friends. We were all intrigued by true crime books. What if there was a board game in which you could build a syndicate of real life crime legends? I then built the first version of the game called Gangsters that laid the foundation for future versions.

Gangsters integrated the five character syndicate system but was heavily based upon area control. It had a monopoly feel to it that was enjoyable but I wanted to move the emphasis away from area control and more to the team building aspect of the game. Through the next build more emphasis started to be placed on the characters and they started developing new abilities. By Gangsters 3 we had added assets and a retaliation system that made risk assessment much more interesting and gameplay much richer. After around a thousand hours of testing Gangsters 3 we started to create True Crime Legends.

This is a project that I have personally financed alone, investing countless hours and a lot of my own money to see my dream realised. We are asking for funding on Kickstarter because we need to raise enough money to get a minimum bulk order from our manufacturer in China (Longpack). Our artwork is all but finished and game mechanics are smooth having undergone meticulous testing.

Component Specs

Some game components like the die and the phase tracker may vary slightly from the pictures. The bank notes are 4 x 2" paper 4C/4C.

Risks and challenges

Although this is our first game we have methodically planned every step to ensure that we can deliver on our promises. Our game is currently 95% finished, with only a few graphical elements needed to be added so as soon as we hit our target we will be in a position to go straight into production with Longpack.
I (James) will be keeping close contact with all of our fans from the start of this campaign. If you have any questions or concerns at all please contact me and I will get back to you right away.